Lynn Compton

Lynn "Buck" Compton (31 December 1921-25 February 2012) was a US Army and US Air Force lieutenant-colonel, LAPD detective, and California Court of Appeals judge who served with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, US 506th Infantry Regiment during World War II.

Biography
Lynn Compton was born in Los Angeles, California on 31 December 1921, and he played baseball with Jackie Robinson at UCLA, also playing football. He participated in ROTC in college and joined the US Army airborne infantry in December 1943, being assigned to Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, US 506th Infantry Regiment. He was awarded the Silver Star for his role in disabling the German guns during the Brecourt Manor Assault of 6 June 1944, and he was wounded during Operation Market Garden. In January 1945, after the Battle of the Bulge, he left Easy Company for another assignment, as he suffered from combat fatigue following the injury of his friends Joe Toye and William Guarnere, as well as trench foot. He served in the US Air Force reserve from 1947 to 1970, retiring as a lieutenant-colonel. From 1946 to 1951, he also served as an LAPD detective, and he became a deputy district attorney in 1951. He successfully prosecuted Sirhan Sirhan for the murder of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and Governor Ronald Reagan appointed him an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal in 1970. He retired from the bench in 1990, and he died in Burlington, Washington in 2012 at the age of 90.